The present invention is directed to a document transmitting method and also a document transmit system by which various sorts of documents are transmitted/accepted in the form of electronic data, and fee/charge are paid, and further fee/charge payments are accepted in the form of electronic data in connection with transmission/acceptance of these documents.
Recently, under open type network environments such as the Internet, various sorts of document data and also commercial transactions are performed. In future, various modes of these business activities will be progressed. For instance, nowadays, filing documents may be electronically submitted to Japanese Patent Office in such a manner that file submitting persons directly dial to the server installed in Japanese Patent Office so as to transmit document data of these files. However, in future, there are many possibilities that the file submitting persons are connected via the Internet to Japanese Patent Office. On the other hand, for example, as to registration of real estate, registration of commercial firms, or issuing activities of other certificates by governmental offices (certificate of residence), applicants directly must go to a registry office, or a public office so as to submit documents (various application documents) and complete necessary procedures. However, in future, such activities may be performed via the Internet.
In the case that the documents are electronically submitted via the Internet and the like by way of the communication, fees should be paid since these electronic documents are submitted. In most case, a stamp, or an inspection sticker is bought and attached onto a submission document, and then this document attached with the stamp, or inspection sticker is submitted to governmental offices such as Japanese Patent Office, registry offices, and public offices. When documents are submitted by way of communications, a certain fee payment system is necessarily required. For instance, in accordance with the electronic filing system introduced by Japanese Patent Office, document submitting persons remit a certain amount of money in advance to the prepayment bank account. In the system of Japanese Patent Office, when a patent filing is accepted, a necessary amount of money is drawn from this prepayment bank account.
On the other hand, in a commercial transaction called as an “electronic shopping”, various sorts of products can be purchased via the Internet. Usually, this transaction payment is carried out by drawing the necessary amount of money from a bank account, or a credit card account. Specifically, a person who wants to buy a product transmits either a credit card number or a bank account number via communication. A product selling side draws a predetermined amount of money from the bank account or credit card account by using the transmitted number. Very recently, the Internet electronic payment system called as SET (Secure Electronic Transaction) has been proposed. SET processing is disclosed in for example “SET Secure Electronic Transaction Specification Book: Business Description”, Version 1.0, May 31, 1997.
In such a case that the fee should be paid when the document is electronically submitted via the communication manner such as the Internet, if the amount drawing system from the prepayment account as in the electronic filing system of Japanese Patent Office is employed, then any persons who want to submit documents must open such prepayment accounts in advance, namely very inconvenient. When real estate is registered in a registry office, a person who submits this registration document will complete such a registration procedure only once in his/her life. Therefore, if this document submitting person should open such a prepayment account, then this may cause very cumbersome works.
As a payment method not by a prepayment account, there is a method for drawing a necessary amount of money from a bank account, or a credit card account. In this case, the process for drawing the necessary amount of money from the bank account, or the credit card account designated by the applicant, and the process for submitting/accepting the document in the communication manner should be carried out in separate phases. As a consequence, the following risk may happen to occur. That is, after a document has been submitted, for example, a total amount of money deposited on a bank account is smaller than a total fee to be drawn.
In accordance with the protocol of the above-described SET system, the electronic payment can be done on the Internet. This payment system can be established under such an initial condition that a person who purchases goods is completely identical to a person who pays fees thereof, and further the payment is done at the same time when the person requests to purchase the goods. As a consequence, this SET protocol system cannot be properly applied to such a procedure that either a stamp or an inspection sticker is attached to a document, and then this document with the stamp, or the inspection sticker is submitted to a governmental office such as a patent office, a registry office, and a public office. This is because in such a document submission system, an agent, or an attorney for an applicant who wishes to submit a document may submit this document on behalf of this applicant. That is to say, the applicant of the document should pay money to purchase the stamp, or the inspection sticker to be attached to the document, whereas this document is submitted by the agent. In other words, the person who pays the fee is different from the person who submits the document. In this case, it is not possible to execute the payment procedure in accordance with the above-explained SET protocol while establishing the relationship with the document submission procedure. On the other hand, if the process for submitting the document and for paying the fee is carried out irrespective of the process for submitting this document, then the SET protocol may be used in the fee payment. However, in this case, when the fee payment procedure is made in connection with the document submission procedure, very cumbersome works are required.
On the other hand, when various sorts of documents are submitted, day/time of the document submissions are required to be defined. In the case that a document is submitted via a communication channel, when the condition of this communication channel is deteriorated, this document is required to be resent. Therefore, there is inconveniency that day/time of this document submission are not clear. In particular, if day/time when a transmission of a document is commenced is set as day/time when this document is submitted, then the following illegal utilization could be made. That is, after the document transmission has been commenced to secure the day/time of this document submission, another document having a different content from that of the first-submitted document is transmitted later because the resend subject occurs. Then, this submission person may assert that the resent document was really submitted on the above-described day/time. As a consequence, it is required to establish such a submission day/time defining system capable of rationally determining day/time when a document is submitted via a communication channel.